Michael MacLean
Pronouns: He/Him
Photographer: Andrew Alexander
Michael MacLean’s characters flirt with the ridiculous as they grapple (reluctantly) with the Big Questions. A laid-off bureaucrat steals his father’s body from the funeral home. A now-human Pinocchio flees death, stumbles into the porn industry and discovers the unsweetened reality of love. An embittered atheist is transported into the Old Testament and comes back with a dog. NOW Toronto listed his solo show Smoke in its 10 best shows of the year. Woody, another solo show, helped put its actor on NOW’s list of 10 theatre artists to watch. Michael won the CBC-Alberta Culture Write for Radio Competition with Let’s Play and has been a member of Tarragon Theatre’s Playwrights Unit twice. The 10-minute plays he wrote for the Unit, You May Already Be a Winner and The Audition, appear in the collection Snappy Shorts. Like Smoke and Woody, they’ve been produced across Canada and in the U.S. Michael lives in Ottawa.